We all like to believe that peer pressure doesn’t affect us, that advertising doesn’t work, and that we would be completely comfortable being the only individual facing the door of an elevator when the six other passengers decide to randomly face the back. Why would you turn to the back of an elevator, even if everyone else was? You are not stupid! Unfortunately, when placed in this situation, you would most likely find that your ability to resist the actions of the group is handicapped. Just like the man in this episode of the popular 1960s show Candid Camera, which I have linked, you are greatly susceptible to the power of conformity.

Conformity in social psychology is defined by Revel’s Social Psychology as “changing one’s behavior due to the real or imagined influence of others.” Conformity is a strong aspect of almost every social situation. Our willingness to sacrifice individuality in order to fulfill the expectations of others has puzzled social psychologists for years and has spawned an abundance of psychological research.

Social psychologists have been able to identify two major reasons for conformity. The first is informational social influence, which occurs when situations are ambiguous and we look at others for information. When we are unsure about something we use the behaviors and attitudes of other people to fill this void in comprehension. We adopt the behavior of others, thus conforming for the purpose of cognition.

The second cause of conformity is derived from our need for high self-esteem, the desire for others to like us. This is referred to as normative social influence. Psychologist Solomon Asch was particularly interested in this source of conformity, conducting a series of experiments that are now widely known and respected- Asch Tests. 

In this blog post, I will simply focus on Asch’s initial experiment. Asch had subjects walk into a room as a group and sit around a table. Of the five to six people spread around the table, only one was a participant, all the others were confederates- members of the study working directly with the experimenters. The participate was unaware of this; he or she believed he was surrounded by fellow study participants.

Asch knew he had to create a situation that was not ambiguous, because such a situation would lend itself to informational social influence, instead of proving the presence of normative social influence.

He first showed participants a photo of three vertical straight lines of various sizes. Then he showed a photo of one line and asked the participants which of the three lines from the first photo was closest in length. The correct answer to this question was obvious, thus the singular unwitting participant could easily identify the right line to choose. However, Asch had all of the confederates answer the question before the participants, all choosing the same incorrect line.

Asch continued to ask other similar questions with obvious answers. He found that around 76% of participants conformed, offering the incorrect answer, after only one of these questions. The 24% that did not conform after the first question caved after the next few rounds.

While these participants decided to affirm the answers of the confederate majority, Asch understood that they did not actually believe that was the correct answer. The participants were motivated by a need to fit into a group, to be liked and accepted by others, by normative social influence.

76% of people were willing to offer an obviously incorrect answer to a question in order to fit in with a group of people they did not even know and would most likely never see again. This information seems to challenge the commonplace that we all tend to hold that we are strong enough to resist conformity. It might be time to reevaluate just how much the presence of others influences your thoughts and behaviors.